Fifty Paper Hearts
by cupid-painted-blind
Summary: She made paper hearts. They were small and lined and imperfect, but on each she wrote a name, a number and a date, and dropped them into the empty grate. She'd burn them when they meant something.


She made paper hearts.

They were small and lined and imperfect, but on each heart she wrote a name and a number and a date, then dropped them into the empty grate. She spent a long time collecting the names and organizing them, but that was okay, she was a Ravenclaw; categorizing things wasn't a chore. She'd burn them when they meant something. She hoped it'd be soon.

_--  
Myrtle Abbot  
1  
April 3, 1942  
--_

The grate was very small, and it was getting full by now, so she decided to divide them up into two sections: one for the first war, one for the second. She had prayed that the first section would be larger, but the second was growing. She could no longer count everyone, there were so many. She hoped that she wouldn't have to give up numbering the dead; it gave her something to do with her numb time.

She wished she had enough paper to make a heart for every muggle family as well as wizard, but she hadn't the resources.

--  
_Marlene McKinnon and Family  
2  
August 23, 1979  
--  
Dorcas Meadowes  
3  
October 19, 1979  
--  
Benjy Fenwick  
4  
Date Unknown  
--  
Gideon and Fabian Prewett  
5, 6  
March 15, 1980  
--  
Caradoc Dearborn  
7  
Date Unknown  
--  
Lily and James Potter  
8, 9  
October 31, 1981  
--  
Frank and Alice Longbottom  
10, 11  
November 28, 1981_  
--

She made twelve hearts, though, for people whose names she didn't know, people she'd never met, people who probably didn't deserve to be killed thoughtlessly but probably hadn't done anything of special note. She wished that she knew their names, but she didn't and she figured that they'd know who they were anyway.

She hoped that they could see her paper hearts, but even if they couldn't that was okay; she knew what they meant and she hoped that anyone else who saw them would pick it up soon enough.

_--  
Unknown Muggle  
12  
November 1, 1981  
--  
Unknown Muggle  
13  
November 1, 1981  
--  
Unknown Muggle  
14  
November 1, 1981  
--  
Unknown Muggle  
15  
November 1, 1981  
--  
Unknown Muggle  
16  
November 1, 1981  
--  
Unknown Muggle  
17  
November 1, 1981  
--  
Unknown Muggle  
18  
November 1, 1981  
--  
Unknown Muggle  
19  
November 1, 1981  
--  
Unknown Muggle  
20  
November 1, 1981  
--  
Unknown Muggle  
21  
November 1, 1981  
--  
Unknown Muggle  
22  
November 1, 1981  
--  
Unknown Muggle  
23  
November 1, 1981_  
--

She worked for hours, mindless work that no one else would have had the patience to do, which was really the only reason why she was doing it. No one else would, so she had to give these people some recognition. It rained outside and she ignored the thunder and the lightning and the wind whistling down the chimney, ruffling her paper hearts.

They didn't move.

_--  
Bertha Jorkins  
24  
Date Unknown  
--  
Bartemius Crouch  
25  
May 24, 1994  
--  
Cedric Diggory  
26  
June 24, 1994  
--  
Sirius Black  
27  
June 17, 1995  
--_

She knew there had to be more, many more than the ones she knew of, but she thought there was little more she could do for them. She didn't believe in praying for the souls of the dead. It was one of the few things she didn't care to believe in. The dead were dead, and she wanted to respect them, but she figured her prayers would find more favor with the living and god willing, no priest would have to pray for their souls for a long time.

She had a bad feeling that the names on the paper hearts would strike closer to home soon enough.

_--  
Amelia Bones  
28  
July 5, 1995  
--  
Emmeline Vance  
29  
July 6, 1995  
--  
Maria Abbot  
30  
September 20, 1995  
--  
The Montgomery Boy  
31  
December 14, 1995  
--  
Albus Dumbledore  
32  
June 1, 1996  
--_

She made another heart, this one out of pink paper, because this one was different, this one wasn't really dead, but had little to live for anyway, and she was now quite sure he wouldn't live much longer. Another paper heart, and she colored it with a gold border.

She made four more of these pink hearts, for people who might have been better off dead, but stubbornly kept going anyway. But only one got rimmed in gold.

_--  
Harry Potter  
1  
--  
Ron Weasley  
2  
--  
Hermione Granger  
3  
--  
Ginny Weasley  
4  
--  
Neville Longbottom  
5  
--_

She made thirteen black hearts, for the thirteen whose names she knew, of the men and women who took those lives, and these she placed in a separate pile, to be burnt first. She cleared the grate and put the thirteen black ones in, hoping that the metaphor would grow up and be more than just a few pieces of paper turning to ash in the rain.

Some of the thirteen were already dead. She pretended that she wouldn't mind if the rest were, but she found herself tired of the macabre and wanted make paper hearts without names again. She wanted a paper heart to just be paper again.

_--  
Draco Malfoy  
6  
--  
Bellatrix Lestrange  
7  
--  
Rudolphus Lestrange  
8  
--  
Rabastan Lestrange  
9  
--  
Lucuis Malfoy  
10  
--  
Severus Snape  
11  
--  
Avery  
12  
--  
Augustus Rookwood  
13  
--  
Barty Crouch, Jr.  
33  
June 24, 1994  
--  
Evan Rosier  
34  
May 7, 1979  
--  
Peter Pettigrew  
14  
--  
Fenrir Greyback  
15  
--  
Tom Riddle  
16  
--_

She had 32 white hearts, five pink ones, and thirteen black hearts. 32 dead, five people she knew personally, trying to fight, and thirteen Death Eaters, two of whom were dead but black anyway. Fifty paper hearts in all, and she knew she'd only begun. The stack of newspapers lay untouched next to her. She picked up the first one and made another three hearts.

"Emma Garith… 35. Husband, Nathan Garith… 36. Son, Michael Garith… 37. Muggles, all three. January 15, 1996." She labeled each heart with name, number, and date of death. "Jason Markos… 38. Wizard. January 15, 1996."

…

_(One year later, someone found hundreds of paper hearts, meticulously labeled with the names of hundreds of people, numbered in an order she couldn't comprehend, with dates for the day each person had died. There was no doubt in the woman's mind who had made the hearts. The maker had left one plain, white, paper heart with no name, number or date._

_She knew what had happened to the girl who made the hearts. She had become a woman who had fought for the names on them._

_Hermione Granger picked up the last heart and, taking the quill, wrote on it:_

Luna Lovegood  
345  
June 14, 1997

_She threw all of the hearts, one by one, into the fireplace, saving only the names of the ones still alive. There were exactly 5 left on the table.)_

--  
A/N: I hope you understood that. In case you didn't notice, the discrepancy in the numbering is because she wanted to number the dead separately from the living.


End file.
